A random Pinterest search yesterday brought me to the most stunning, moody, sensuous painting of a woman with gold flecked hair.

Of course I wanted to see more…don’t you! Clicking through to the original source led me to an exceptional design blog Jeannie Jeannie, and article on artist Brad Kunkle, who embellishes his oil painting of women with real gold and silver leaf to not only add a symbolic element, but to also allow light to play across the painting. The effect is amazing…enchanting… mesmerizing. Spend a few minutes, or much more, on his website enjoying the light….

I have been super fortunate to have been given the opportunity to plan and lead painting adventures to many beautiful cities and countries of the world: France and Italy with my friend Gary Lord, and Marrakech with the help of Maryam Montague. These trips have now actually become an integral part of my business AND personal life. I love doing all the research and planning for both painting and enjoying the local culture, and most especially introducing new experiences to the students who sign on to these trips.  With the help of my friend in Barcelona, Paul Deprez, I have just returned from a 2-week stay in Barcelona and the Catalunya region.

This was my fourth visit to Barcelona, and each time my love for this city grows exponentially. So much so that I am already planning a return painting trip for September 2012! But back to THIS trip….I have so much to share, but thought I should start with the primary reason *cough* for the tour-the decorative painting classes.

The trip was planned to include a 6 night stay in the city and 6 nights in a former monestary in the hills nearby.The monestir, Sant Jeroni de la Murtra, was partially burned and sacked in the 19th century during a widespread backlash against the corruption and power of the church. It is now run by a private foundation that maintains it as a place for solitude, silence, and encourages artistic pursuits.

We were able to set up some small, low-ceilinged rooms as studio spaces to work on a range of projects. I wanted to take the opportunity to incorporate some forthcoming stencils from The Hearst Castle Collection, as these were designs created by Julia Morgan to decorate Hearst Castle in a Spanish/Mediterranean Revival style.

The Delphine Panel sample was done on smooth textured plaster background. We laid in the initial color and pattern with a simple dry-brush stencil technique. I was inspired by the amazing work of Italian artist, Carolina d’Ayala Valva, to overpaint the stenciling with washes of color to create a luminous look.

Some day, I would love to have the opportunity to study with Carolina in her Rome Atelier, but in the meantime I have her wonderful book, which I highly recommend! After painting with watered-down acrylics (as opposed to the traditional egg tempera) the painting on plaster was sanded to distress, and given a soft toning glaze.

Here is lovely Nancy showing off her own completed panel.

Another panel that I have taken from Julia Morgan’s amazing architectural drawings is the Pescado Panel. It is full of whimsical birds and fish that appear almost happy to have been caught-ha!

This panel is stenciled with three colors of our new Royal Stencil Cremes over a background of composition gold leaf. The gold leaf has been patinated and distressed with a safe chemical process that I am still perfecting-as much as you “can” perfect a chemical process! Once I have it a little more “under control”, I will surely share the details.

Another project that we worked on was a faux tile mural. For this we again used upcoming Hearst Castle Collection stencils. In this case we simply used them as patterns to trace and then add loose hand painting to create the look of classic Portuguese tiles. My sample above shows the mural in various stages of  completion. I hope to finish the mural in the next couple of weeks. It was thrilling for me to have the time to actually pick up a brush and paint, as it seems my hands are most often attached to a computer keyboard these days!

This study shows the final effect of the last step-adding a China Crackle layer (from Modern Masters) and rubbing in a toning glaze to reveal the cracks and add depth and aging.

Here is a completed mural by Debbie Hayes, who was the fastest painter of the bunch of us! It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it? All of the stencils featured in the projects above will be available soon from Royal Design Studio stencils!

Another decorative style that is synonymous with Barcelona is Modernisme, the uniquely Catalunyan version of Art Nouveau. I wanted to honor that heritage, and so we also did a tecnique using metallic foils with a new Modello Marquetry Masking Pattern stencil from Modello Designs.

On our way from Barcelona to the monestir, we stopped at Espintura Studio to do an embedded tile pattern technique with SkimStone and a Modello masking pattern.

Now that I am back, I’m continuing to work on the videos and lessons for my next Virtual Workshop combining these two mediums.

I hope you enjoyed seeing our painting samples from Barcelona! As I said above, I am already planning a return trip in Sept. 2012, so drop me an email if you want to be the first to get those details when they become available!. The details on this recent trip are still available here.

 You can view more photos from the Barcelona painting class and trip in my flickr sets!

It’s that time of year again! Time to reveal my age longevity, and turn my attention to the upcoming annual IDAL (International Decorative Artisans League) Convention. I joined this organization (formerly The Stencil Artisans League) in 1983 as member #31 as a wide-eyed stencil-obsessed novice.  After dibbling and dabbling around with what I wanted to do when I grew up, I attended my first convention as both a stencil company exhibitor and a teacher in 1994-and the rest is “history”. Actually, quite a bit of history. I just added the years up on my fingers and toes and came up with the realization that this will be my 18th year in a row to continue with that tradition! Good grief!!

The organization and  convention, like most of us,  the “industry”, and the world, has undergone many changes and weathered some storms, but it HAS SURVIVED as THE place to to be, see, and be seen in the decorative painting biz. The annual convention combines one-stop shopping for the best selection of instructors, classes, new products, inspiration, networking and (dare I say) partying. It’s a great time to come together as a community, recharge our creative juices, and reconnect with what inspired us to devote our lives to decorative painting in the first place.

I will be teaching a 4 hour hands on workshop called Shining up Your Portfolio. The focus is on incorporating metal leaf, metallic foils, patinas, distressing and more with paint, stained, and plastered finishes. Each student will leave with four loverly samples, as well as our new, enlarged Japanese Hydrangea stencil and Feathered Damask stencil.

I will also be repeating the Double Vision class from last year with the incomparable Helen Morris from The Stencil Library. There are some really fabulous classes being offered this year, and the online registration makes it SO easy.You can also easily see all of the class listings on the new Artisphere Online site, which is where you will also find the official online magazine of IDAL.

This year’s convention will be helf July 20-24 in Hampton, VA, which should be a relatively easy drive for those of you living on the East Coast. As always, the Expo Hall will be open to the general public for a nominal daily fee. When I’m not teaching, I’ll be in the booth and demoing stenciling techniques nearby. Come see me!!

I’ve just spent the last couple of days filming some of the video lessons for the next Virtual Workshop I will be offering, Patterned Mirror and Glass. Next week, I’ll beging filming the mirror antiquing lessons, but this week I focused on techniques that incorporate etching, metallic foils, and reverse gilding, also commonly know as verre eglomise.Verre eglomise is a decorative technique that dates back to the Romans and antiquity and traditionally involves applying precious metal the the backside of glass over a gelatin size. Designs can then be etched in and further colored. MY techniques are definitely less traditional, and employ less expensive leaf, quick applications that are easily accomplished, and our Modello masking patterns, of course, but OH, if I had the time I would love to learn and explore the “master” techniques. Cue my latest artist crush, Miriam Ellner. She has an amazing studio and body of internationally renowned work that ranges from classic to contemporary to newer “collage” pieces.

Are you drooling yet? You might also like to view the work on another highly renowned verre eglomise artist, Francis Federer…..

I was inspired by this post over on Fauxology to explore the Petra Antiqua website further. Now I am just inspired to gild, oh, shall we say……….everything! 

Stacey Tapinis of House to Home Designs,  has a loving family, a VERY pretty website, and an adorable furniture and home design shop in Babylon Village, NY. She is also an accomplished decorative painter who has used Royal Design Studio stencils for years. Recently, she took on a large church decoration project and turned to using a custom designed Modello Decorative Masking Pattern instead. It was her first “Modello job” and it was a biggie! She said she was very nervous about it but it looks like she handled it like a seasoned veteran….

Stacey comes from a family of painters. Her grandfather came from Greece to America and her father has been painting for over 50 years. He has actually donated his time to pain the entire church for free.

Stacey’s Mother helped her with the gilding. Now that’s what I call some good quality family time!

Nothing makes me happier than having customers (decorative painters) who have customers (daring homeowners) who are willing and wanting to push the envelope, so to speak, with designs and patterns in their homes. Granted, these types of projects MAY require a healthy budget, but more importantly they resist the need to “play it safe”. Case in point: this amazing faux mosaic application that was inspired by the art and decoration at the original Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas.

Michelle, on our staff, did an amazing job of creating these large mosaic flowers, and Anna and Scott Sadler of Surface Refinements in Scottsdale, Arizona got to do the fun indredibly tedious part of applying various colors of metal leaf, metallic foil and metallic paints to the individual squares, estimated to be around 7,000 in number. Talk about commitment and determination-or as Anna calls it-insanity!

Yes, a LOT of work. But seriously, HOW MUCH do you want something like this in your bathroom? I want it BAD! I even want to see it going up one wall, across the ceiling , and down the other side. Maybe Anna and Scott would want to come to my studio here an do that, now that they have so much “experience”.

You can see how much this “mosaic madness” has gotten under their skin…..

Update: My friend in stenciling, Helen Morris, blogged about this here.

I’m back and ready to share some more Marrakech experiences from our recent painting project at Peacock Pavilions.

I want to share my absolute favorite project from the trip-and I loved creating them all! This was my favorite not only because the “inspiration” was so divine, but it allowed me to stretch my artistic muscles a bit. You see, I spend WAY to much time focusing on my computer keyboard and business matters these days in favor of actually doing the artistic design work that got me brought me to this point in my life. I hope to find more balance between the two this year!!

Armand Albert Rateau is the artist who created this amazing paneled screen for Jean Lanvin. Rateau is the decorating force behind Lanvin’s famous Paris apartment in rue Barbey-de-Jouy, which has been now partially conserved in the Paris Museum of Decorative Arts. I will be making a beeline for that place the next time I am lucky enough to visit Paris for sure!

The space is a headboard wall of one of the guest rooms, approximately 12.5′ wide by 11.5′ high. The artwork above shows the computer mockup of the design that was created by using a combination of Modello Decorative Masking Patterns and reusable mylar stencils (for the scattered flowers and stars). While I did borrow a couple of the leaf motif shapes from the original, the majority of the mural was created afresh to personalize it to Peacock Pavilions while attempting to maintain the Art Deco feel of the original.

A deep decorative dado was added to unify the wall and to also provide a painted decorative headboard to the beds, which will need to be positioned both as single twin beds and a double bed, depending on guest’s needs. Here, Margaret and Pam are laying out the initial panels that anchor the mural.

The Modello masking portion of the mural was divided into sections that easily fit together, following a key. We found that we had to complete each section at a time quickly, as a cold, damp, outward facing wall was repelling the adhesive. It rained quite a bit on the days we were working. We actually came back after lunch one day to find a piece lying crumpled on the floor. EEEEK!!

Above, Rebecca and Vicki are wrestling to remove the Transfer Tape while keeping pattern on the wall while the deer (and me) watched expectantly. These ladies were soooo patient and calm-skills needed by every decorative painter as “challenges” are inherent to most projects it seems! The olive tree was included, of course, because Peacock Pavilions sits in the middle of a beautiful olive grove!

The finishing touches were applied with stencils. Here, Cynthia is following the graphic to apply some of the random flowers and stars with stencils. You may be wondering how this beautiful gold effect was achieved. I toyed with the idea of using either metallic paint or real composition gold leaf, but opted instead to use one of my favorite quick and easy methods for creating a gilded effect: We combined Mica Powders at a ratio of 1:1 with Aquacreme (a scumble-type glaze medium) to create a thick, opaque, glimmering stencil “gel”. It dries fairly quickly when applied with a dry brush method, so you can layer quickly for dense coverage-even over black. We used 3 different colors, randomly applied, to achieve a somewhat “tarnished”, aged look.

It makes quite a lovely backdrop for a group photo, I think! Our hard working, hard shopping Peacock Painters this time were: (back row) Pam Grace, Margaret von Kaenel, Cynthia Davis, Barbara Rasmussen, Robin Johnston, Heather Bruno Sears, Melanie Royals, and (front row) Rebecca Hotop, Vicki Schultz, and Gwen Ware.

Maryam and me….

……the full view…..

…and a detail. Can you imagine how fun it will be to sleep under the watchful eye of these friendly creatures? I can’t wait to see how Maryam beautifully decorates this room, but I know it will be stunning. Individual patterns and motifs avalable soon through Modello Designs!

Have you noticed? Shades of lavender popping up everywhere, from soft sweaters at Banana Republic (ask me how I know this!) to these recent pages of Elle Decor and House Beautiful.

Love it with the Moroccan door!

This photo below is my favorite. LOVE the wallpaper and touches of black.

How cool is this curved wall?  A similar effect can easily be created with tape and metallic paint. Imagine the possibilities for all different types of geometric patterns?!

I’ve had this page tacked onto one of my studio walls for months now.

It inspired my purple lime paint studio wall that now is adorned with Moroccan arches filled with bright pattern! Here, I used EasAll123.

Our new studio has a little “kitchen” area with cabinets and a countertop. I had them install stock cabinets from Lowe’s and a simple black formica countertop. This was more of a budget than design decision (story of my life!) and of course provides the opportunity for yet another painting project. The cabinets will get some sort of eggplanty finish on them with patinated mirrors (cut to size) on the upper doors. For the countertop, I opted to do something simple. It’s all relative! *Simple* turns out to be getting a large piece of glass cut to size. Of course I didn’t take careful enough measurements and the builders didn’t take care to make anything plumb or square in the building so my nice square-cornered glass has a slight *fit* problem. What to do? Distract the eye like crazy!

I had a classic Moroccan zelij tile pattern cut and placed it on the back side of the 2′ x 7′ glass to do some reverse gilding with the new Celestial Leaf (colors: Dawn, Moonbeam and Twilight again). I used our Marquetry Weed technique to reveal different areas one at a time which receive a different color leaf.

When it’s all done and dry it receives multiple coats of black lacquer spray paint….

gets flipped over and viola! we now have a lovely surface that is easy to clean (and check out your hair in). This is a really quick and easy finish and can be applied to any piece of furniture that you can lay a piece of glass on!